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Running Drone Infestation Level IV, in an shield regen Ishtar.
I have 2 T2 arties on it to increase damage slightly, but vast majority of damage with drones.
I use Hob's on the small rats in this mission, since they are weakest to em/Therm.
Ogre II's on the fast orbiting cruisers, and Garde II's slow BC's at 24 km.

First room:
I first acquired full room aggro and , in this room, can be stationary.
Insta death for hobs.
The Hob's had not even got to the first target, a Strain Splinter frig, when one Hob II was in structure.
2nd time I launched the Hob's, they were essentially ignored.
By wasting ammo on a frig (arties can't track and hit frigs at 5km), I managed to keep the small drones alive.

The Ogres and Gardes seemed to be ignored entirely, but can't tell if the drone BS's were missing the Ogres or shooting my Ishtar.

2nd room:
Same insta death for Hob's. Immediate aggro on release of small drones.
In this case I have to speed tank a drone bunker, so zero chance of recalling the Hobs before they are toast.
Once again, when Hob's released a 2nd time, they are effectively ignored, or I at least did not have to recall them.

AI Verdict in this mission: Liveable, but you WILL lose small drones immediately, but then seem to survive once released a 2nd time.

Other stuff: The new circular targets are stupid beyond any statement.
The icons are completely non-intuitive, and the old style was far superior.

I have run a LOT of logi in PvE and PvP, There are going to be a lot of dead ships with this new interface.

Edit: Oh, and simply loving the 15 logoff minute timer against NPC's. That makes so much sense when CCP gives us 5 minutes warning on a emerg reboot.

can you launch one tech I hob let it die then launch the rest tech II and they should be fine?

thats rather superfluous if you ask me...

3rd Mission: L4 Damsel in Distress

Speed-tanked away from the rats, dropped Garde II's, popped the 2 tackling frigs before damage too bad on Gardes, then started speed tanking the rats again orbiting the Pleasure Gardens at 30km.
Shot Krull to trigger 2nd spawn, and speed-tanked all. (This is how I do it on TQ as well.)

Released Ogres as the damage is too much from the rat Mach's to orbit tightly the Gardes.

The server started messing up with serious slowdowns, and messages like "all items are busy" to get a proper accounting from here on, but it appears that the AI is ignoring my heavy drones. I released the Ogres, and let them range as far as they wanted (30 km from my ship) as I speed tanked the bulk of the first spawn plus all of the 2nd. The Ogres suffered zero damage, and I even walked away for the last Mach in the 2nd spawn ,with my ship stationary, and no guns firing. Ogres were not attacked.

One the 3rd spawn, (triggered using Gardes on the structure), the Gardes were insta attacked by numerous ships.
I recalled them once they had popped frigs in that spawn, then began speed tanking again with Ogres taking on the cruisers and BS's.

4th Spawn. Was stationary. Used Gardes to pop frigs until too close to track.
Released Hobs and one was put into armour almost instantly by 3 remaining frigs.
Recalled them, then released them again and Hob's not targeted again as 3 remaining frigs die.
Released Gardes to take out Zor: No aggro on Gardes.
Gardes cannot track / hit 3 cruiser Assassins, so must use Ogres. Once again, Ogres not targeted.



Verdict: Once again, the Ogre's were completely ignored. I am beginning to believe the AI is broken, since I have had Ogres out in 3 missions now for over 30 minutes cumulative time, and they have not taken damage once. Smalls and Sentries do get Aggro, but through 3 missions, Heavies have not taken damage.

But serious lag is occurring now, making Duality all but unplayable.

I have had time to create this post in the time I have had to wait for Duality to strip a shield hardener off a mid slot.
Then I figured out that, the "Unfit" button in the ship fitting window does not work.
I can "manually" drag it to inventory, but that is the only way.

The "fit to active ship" mechanism works.

You know CCP, if Fox Four was actually refitting ships to run different missions, that "unfit" mechanism not working would have been flagged REALLY fast. So what was Fox Four running all these missions in, if Fox Four did not pick up on this mechanism being broken?

And where is Fox Four. I realize this is a weekend, and Fox Four may be hung over after the CCP party last night, but given there are less than 3 days left in this test window, and if this AI is so important to CCP's future plans, I would expect the dev responsible for it to be around.

If not, why open up Duality in a time frame where 3 of the 4 days the dev responsible is not around?

It appears that any testing of the AI is utterly broken since I can't get the AI to shoot my Heavy Drones.

I have run 5 missions, and in all cases, against Merc, Rogue Drones, and Sanshas, my Heavies have suffered no damage.
My Lights are getting insta-popped, and my Sentries take almost immediate damage, so I know the AI is functioning to some extent.

And before the fanbois start spouting off about "RNG", consider those 5 missions equates to several hours of heavy drones out in the rats' faces game, and over who knows how many AI decision cycles, the Heavies appear to be never even targeted.

And just now, I grabbed all the aggro for Sansha Recon level 4, room 1, then started speed-tanking in an Ishtar, let go my Ogres, and GASP!!!!!......for all intents and purposed went AFK!!!!

If you want people to spend time testing new game mechanics, how about ensuring they actually work.
This is not some trivial issue, but a fundamental part of the AI.

You release new code to Duality on a Friday (late I might add), then have the dev's all take Friday off for a corporate event, then have CCP Goliath infer that the devs are pretty hungover on Saturday, so not many around on the Saturday.
Now we are looking at Sunday, maybe Monday, before any responses from the dev's responsible for coding this mess.

CCP, if you want to show some professionalism, why not introduce the code on a Monday or Tuesday, when the dev's are available, and not hung over?

I am done wasting time with this test until I get some answers from a dev on what is going on.

Call me what you like, label my posts as you like.
But check the actual thread where people are supposed to be posting test results.
Note the lack of posts.

Not surprising, since 5 minutes ago there were a grand total of 40 people on Duality.

If you are trying to be funny, it is a poor attempt.
If you meant your post to be serious, you are clearly way, way out of your depth.

Yeah, another midslot on drone boats to fit a Omni would be indeed be grand.
But I imagine a few PvP'ers would get a tad testy about 6 mid-slot Ishtar bearing down on them.

Just did a Duo of Death 4 - gurista. Waited for full room aggro and the spider drones to get < 8k. Launched heavies without doing anything myself, no drone aggro. Attacked a spider drone, and the heavies got aggro and one died pretty quickly. After it died, I had aggro again. Killed the other spider drone with the remaining heavies, then switched to the BS.

It really seems that the AI breaks down if you recall the drones, or they kill a drone. Without some indication though of when a drone gets aggro, it's nearly impossible to tell unless the drone takes damage. I'd say back the changes off until a new drone UI is done so we have tools to deal with the AI change.

AI-bait drone group for missions...

Heavy drones were hard to use due to their travel time even before the AI upgrade, now that they can be targeted and popped suddenly, by the time you notice they took agro (which is, they are already locked on to, and taking damage), they will not make it back with their huuuge sig and low speed. Since they already took at least a salvo,by the time you click they take at least a second, and a third is more than likely even traveling a short distance, not to mention 50km.

But that's true to all drones, just heavies are most vulnerable, while lighter ones have the issue of higher chance of being scrammed/webbed due to their sig radius.

Not unexpected, is it?

What issue is with it from balance POW is that when you opt to use T2/faction ammo, you accept the increased cost, but know that you would have an increased efficience, and you will prolly make up for the cost.
With drones, you accept that T2 ones cost half a mill a pop, but now you run the risk of them going pop. Increased risk of going them pop, and a higher chance of not getting back your investment (not to mention that non-drone ships may not have the luxury of being able to carry a second flight! - most of us posting here use drone boats with 3-6 flights, but there are ships with 125/125 or 50/50, these changes affect them just as bad, only differently).
But any interface that would help to maintain drones in PvE, would make them harder to use in PvP, thus upsetting "balance", and that would be bad.